The final phase of the underwater pull is the release, when the hand moves from 9 o’clock back to 12 o’clock, precisely where it started this .85-second, almost circular journey.

Since the hand/arm are now moving in the forward direction again, the objective of this phase is to slip the hand and arm out of the water with the least amount of frontal drag possible. To achieve this, the swimmer draws the elbow up and forward first with the forearm and hand following. The hand then rotates internally with the palm facing toward the swimmers body in order to reduce drag as it leave the water.

The duration of this final phase of the pull is about .15 seconds, slightly longer than the previous phase, but not much. Since the motion of the hand and arm are now forward and up, there is neither propulsion nor lift to be gained from this final phase of the pull. Once the hand leaves the water and begins the recovery above water, the sooner one can get the arm and hand back in the water for another pull cycle, the better. Read the rest of this entry »

As the hand continues its propulsive motion rearward and enters the back quadrant, past the shoulder, to get from 6 o’clock to 9 o’clock, it takes a different course than going around the perimeter of the glare clock. To maximize the propulsive power of each arm pull, the force vector of the arm/hand needs to remain in the opposite direction of the body’s motion. To accomplish this, rather than follow the perimeter of the clock, which would create an upward force, increasing frontal drag, the hand elevates and the wrist dorsiflexes to maintain the maximum surface area possible pushing backward. In other words, the hand cuts off much of the quarter of the clock when going from 6 to 9 o’clock. Read the rest of this entry »

At the point when the hand reaches 3 o’clock on the ‘glare’ clock, the distal part of the arm and hand change functions. They stop acting like a wing and/or applying downward force for lift and suddenly change directions and accelerate backwards. For approximately the next 1/3 of a second, the hand (and forearm) will create a propulsive force by moving in the opposite direction for a distance of approximately two feet and that motion will help drive the swimmer forward.

The amount of body speed that is generated by this propulsive phase of the underwater pull is related to the effective surface area of the pulling arm/hand, the speed or acceleration of the hand/forearm as it moves backward and the amount of force generated by the counter-rotation of the body. The body speed is also inversely related to the amount of frontal drag created by the ever-changing shape of the entire swimmer throughout the pull cycle.

I often ask my campers the question of whether the power of the arm pull is greater in the front quadrant or the back quadrant, separated anatomically by the shoulder. I would say that the responses that I get are about half and half, which is to say that at least half the people don’t know the answer. The others are probably good guessers. Read the rest of this entry »